IAN BUCKLEY IS NOW IN CHINA!

This is his latest email, received 22 Oct 2010:
I heard there was a good turn up at Bill Schapel's register meeting.

 
I have now been in China for 2 months.  My first month was in Beijing and then I went on a trip for 3 weeks.  Firstly I went to Chengdu in Sichuan Province to stay with my German friend Olaf.  He has an apartment there and is teaching English and German.  I met him 3 years ago when I was backpacking in China.  Also in Chengdu I saw my young friend Yan.  I also met her last time when she was doing her Bachelor of Nuclear Engineering degree.  She is now qualified and her company have sent her back to Chengdu for an intensive English course so she can help at an up and coming conference at here nuclear power station in Sichuan.  Yan and I went walking together to the top of Emei Shan (Mount Emei).  It took us 3 days of continually walking up steps to reach the top and we stayed at monastaries and ate the monk's vegetarian food.  That walking was very good for the heart.  At the top the views are supposed to be so spectacular that some monks jumped over the edge in awe of the scenery!!
 

After Chengdu I stayed a couple of days at an ancient town called Langzhou and then caught another local bus to Chongqing which is the number 3 city and has a population of 30 million.  This city is built on many hills so there are not many bicycles there.  From there I took the famous 3 Gorges river cruise down the Yantzi River through the gorges to the biggest dam and hydro electric scheme in the world. It generates the same electricity as 18 nuclear power stations. While on this river cruise I did a side trip to the Lesser 3 Gorges of Wuhan which was even more spectacular than the main 3 Gorges.  After a night at Yichang I flew back to Beijing.
 
I was planning to go to Shanghai for the Expo before the end of October but I have changed my mind because I cannot be bothered with the huge crowds.
 
My visa runs out on 22 November and I will have to see about a renewal or an extension. It is starting to get cold here and Beijing is a bitterly cold place in December, January and February.  i would like to stay and continue to teach my friend's son English but I wil lsee how I go.
 

cheers for now
 
Keep in touch
 
Ian

Ian Buckley on his European trip!

President Wayne Hough attached a scanned image of an article in the latest Safety Fast Magazine on the opening of the John Thornley Suite with our very own "Ambassador" Ian Buckley presenting a plaque from our Club. Ian was given a special invitation to attend the event and when Ian told me we thought it would be nice for him to take a small gift from our Club. This took the form of a plaque congratulating them on the opening of the Suite.

Hi, I have now been in England for 8 days and have done a fair bit in that time. It is raining today but the weather was fine over the big Silverstone MG Live event last weekend except for the last hour when it poured.

The flight to Singapore was great and the plane only 2/3 full, but the long haul from there to London was on an A380 which was totally full with 471 passengers. I was lucky to have an emergency exit row seat on both flights, but I must have caught a bug on the flight because I have a really bad head cold and throat infection ever since and totally lost my voice for a few days.

My host Paul Plummer has been excellent and I have seen plenty of places considering his commitment over the weekend and otherwise as Overseas Director of the MGCC. I have my own room in his house in the tiny village of Chackmore which is near Buckingham in Buckinghamshire (of course). We are only 5 miles from the Silverstone Racing Circuit. Chackmore doesn’t even have a shop but more importantly it does have a pub. The village is right alongside the famous Stowe School and Estate.

In the days leading up to the MG Live weekend on 4, 5, and 6 June I managed to see many villages in these parts, but on the 4 June I was entered in the Tour de Silverstone driving Paul’s MG ZT car with Trish Drane as my navigator. This is like a Kimber Run in South Australia and went for about 80 miles through some of the nicest villages I have seen. Lunch was at the British Heritage Motor Museum at Gaydon and finished back at Silverstone. 4 of these runs were conducted simultaneously starting in different parts of England. The entire event was very well conducted and the instructions and questions well thought out.

I expect to visit the British Transport Museum at Coventry in the next day or so and also visit the grounds and staterooms of Stowe School.

I have booked a flight to Hamburg for early on 12 June and will then make my way to Hamburg and on to Heiligenhafen and see Karina and collect the motor cycle.

That’s a brief rundown on my trip so far and I am very pleased with it all except that Her Majesty’s Customs have charged me 116 pounds ($173) duty and VAT on my second hand motor cycle riding gear I posted over before I left. I am trying to negotiate a refund on that at the moment.

The photo shows my ride on a 1903 Oldsmobile with tiller steering around Chackmore.

Cheers

Ian